As digital content, (e.g., picture, audio and video content) becomes ubiquitous, the storage, consumption and meaningful archiving of an ever increasing volume of digital content threatens to overwhelm users. Specifically, with respect to the consumption (e.g., viewing or listening) of digital media content, users are being forced to become more selective with respect media that they consume.
A number of technologies are currently available that facilitate the archiving and storage of digital content in a manner that enables users conveniently to locate media of interest at a particular time. For example, United States Patent Application Publication No. US2002/0069218 proposes methods to enable users to add bookmarks to multimedia files, such as movies and audio files. These multimedia bookmarks facilitate the searching of portions or segments of multimedia files. United States Patent Application Publication No. US2004/0128317 also proposes methods and apparatus for viewing, browsing, navigating and book marking videos and displaying images. Content characteristics, for a number of video programs that have been recorded, are locally generated. These content characteristics are then displayed, thus enabling users to select a video of interest, as well as a segment of interest within a selected video. Content characteristics may be generated according to user preference, and may comprise at least one key frame image, or a number of images displayed in the form of an animated image or a video stream.
United States Patent Application Publication No. US2002/0163532 discusses a system for bookmarking an area of interest within stored video content. As a viewer is watching a video, and finds an area of interest, the user can bookmark the particular segment of a video, and then return to that segment with relative simplicity. This can be accomplished by pressing a button, clicking a mouse or otherwise sending a signal to a device for marking a particular location of the video of interest. Frame identifiers can also be used to select a desired video from an index, and to retrieve the video from a medium containing multiple videos.